Where creativity meets insanity

painting

Being an adult is hard. 2/10 Would not recommend. Sure you can eat cake for breakfast, but at what cost?

I would, however, recommend being creative. I was looking for ideas in a sketchbook I have with lovely thick, textured paper, and wanted to do some watercolour in it. I found an old sketch that I could work on. I cleaned up the lines and fixed some of the features before colouring in the image. The leaves came after I dropped the paint brush loaded with blue paint on her shoulders. They’re poorly hidden, but I could go over it properly, given the inclination.

I was sorting beads the other day and found some lovely purple iridescent beads. This lead to creating a small patch on my beading loom. I didn’t have a plan, but I thought I’d make a ring. Unfortunately, I got bored and finished it off before I was nearly at the length I needed to make it around my finger. So I finished it off, and chucked it in a box for later.

Other projects have included painting pictures, drawing, and miniature painting. My Warhammer 40k Dark Angel army is progressing along, and is keeping me busy. They are certainly a challenge, being much different than painting flat canvases. While there are some transferable skills, like dry brushing and washes, there are a lot of nooks and crannies that are tricky to get the brush into and priming the plastic caused me some problems. Keeping the details with multiple thin layers of paint instead of one thick one has also been an issue me and my partner has had to address.

So, I’ve been painting a bit lately. I felt bad about not blogging, but I don’t have the brain power to explain all the different pieces yet.

Here are a few pieces, so I’m getting good use out of the paints that I bought after Christmas. My partner and I have also assembled and primed our respective Warhammer 40k armies, but have to wait to paint them, as we have an inspection coming up.

In the mean time, I have been painting all sorts of things, as you can see. I’ve drawn pictures to paint, copied pictures, used a gesso transfer and painted over the magazine image, I’ve painted boxes, clay figures that I’ve made in the past, begun painting a dress on a paper mache dress form, and scoured my craft room for half finished projects, so I have plenty on the go.
Please excuse the quality of the pictures, the colours did not want to show up with the light, and I had to try an adjust them back. I keep forgetting to take the photos during the day. Perhaps I’ll make a day if it when I’ve completed more pieces. I might even iron the background sheet ;).

Not that I’m stopping the old ones, they are just on hold. I’ve been itching to paint my Warhammer 40,000 army, but I’m waiting for my partner to catch up, so we can paint them together. I get a lot more free time than him, so I decided to start something else while I wait.

I bought some new paints, so while I was in the mood for painting anyway, I thought I’d trial them on a painting.

On the picture above, you’ll see the picture I was inspired by, and next to it, my version that I have started to paint. My mum gave me some colouring books and some old boards she had that weren’t getting used. One of these books was “Secret Japan (colouring for Mindfulness),” which is full of great images, but the Geisha caught my eye and my creative spark ignited immediately. I originally thought of making two paintings, as there were two Geisha in the book, but I only had one piece of board, so I had to pick my favourite. I know colours are very important in the Geisha outfit, for example, I made her collar red to signify she is a maiko, or apprentice Geisha, which is also indicated by the brightness of her kimono colour and the length of her sleeves and extreme height of her shoes. I am excited to continue the painting, and add a lot of patterns to simulate embroidery on her outfit as well as her hair ornaments. I haven’t decided on what to put into the background, but I have a few places to cover scuff marks. I was too eager to start painting to fix them first, but will be easily covered with some patterns.

Hope you all have a Happy New Year and take this opportunity to vow to be more creative.

Oops! In all the fun and confusion of figuring out live streaming, I’ve forgotten to blog! I’ll try to remember to blog what I’ve done on the streams, for those not able to attend.
Since I’ve been putting a bit of time into digital painting, and getting sore after using the pen for three hours, I needed a break, and am trying some watercolours again. I found a hardcover sketchbook that I bought years ago, but didnt get around to use, as although it was fairly cheap, it has nice paper and was saving it for something nice. I figured since my drawing has been going so well, I thought it was time to use the nice paper. It has a nice grain to it, and as I trialed today, is lovely at absorbing water. The paper is actually a lot nicer than buying cheap watercolour paper, and I have quite a lot of pages in the book.
Now you may have noticed my newly developed “ice cube try as pallette” technique. The steps are complicated, but try to keep up… find a cheap or old ice cube tray… and use it as a paint pallette. Since watercolours are activated with water, it doesn’t matter if they dry in the pallette. A tackle box is also great for this, as it has a lid to keep dust out. Alternatively, use plastic wrap over your pallette. This only works with watercolours, and gouache, NOT acrylic or oils.
So, this piece isn’t finished, I have plenty of layers to go, and have to try and make the cherry blossom petals stand out from the hair somehow.
Also, my partner suggested I start calling my followers my Raspberry Flock.
Baaaaaa.

I found a pebble in the garden. So I washed it and painted it. I’ve seen heaps of people who paint dragons eyes on rocks, so I thought I’d try that.
I started out using acrylic, but only had three colours in front of me, so I put it to the side while I was trying out nail art on some fake nails. In the middle of this, while waiting for coats to dry, I decided to try using nail polish as the dragons scales. This worked even better than I thought. Building up blobs of the polish gives the piece texture and depth on the scales. As this wasn’t very planned, I added to black for the crevices between the scales afterwards with black acrylic. I found the green polish to be quite opaque and with the amount I put on, it could have easily gone over the top of a black base. Since this picture, I have gone over the red in more polish to make it stand out a bit more, and am planning to put a clear coat over the eye to make it glossy.
I think I’ll pick up some nice stones at the hardware store next time I go, and paint some more. They usually sell packets for gardening things.
I might show you some nail art one day, but I am so very bad at it, I’m just practising the basics at the moment… Like covering the nail in polish. But not too much.
Also patience. Need more patience.

Just when I thought I had done enough paper mache for a while, I felt like making another shape. Mainly so I can paint it all sparkly. Painting objects is so relaxing, but I have to make the objects first, I guess. This guy is the logo that represents our in game guild. It’s basically chosen from a few they give you, and you choose colours and wear it as a tabard and display your banner, etc. Our colours are green and black, so this creation has earned some green-blue coloured glitter paint in its future. I’d use plain green, but the turquoise is prettier.
Apart from this, I’ve been colouring in an adults zentangle colouring book, plastering gesso onto canvases, and taping paper to my hands, trying to make a gauntlet… I got bored. >.>
If you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s because I’m doing secret present stuff, or I’ll finally get buried under the pile of projects that I haven’t put away. Either way, wish me luck!

Update on the girl. Photo of the computer doesn’t show the colour right, but gives you an idea of what it looks like without giving you my work in progress files.
I changed her hands and gave her dress a lot more shading. I think it’s looking pretty nice. I’m not sure of I’ve been staring at it too long, but it starts to look strange and I get unsure if it looks good. My partner says it looks “fine,” which was a poor choice of words. I don’t want to risk over working it, but I really want it to look fantastic. At this stage I’m not even sure if I should define her toes, or make it that she’s wearing stockings/tights.

So many people are crazy about shimmer these days. It seems all the trend with their wink odefinately and their pearl pigments. Not once have I heard them mention iridescent medium by Reeves. I found this in the art section of my craft store, and it’s intension is to mix with any acrylic paint to make it shimmery. The medium part in the name means it has the same basic structure of acrylic paint, and will mix well with it. There are so many mediums you can get, some to build texture, or some slow drying to make them more oil paints, but less toxic.
Back to iridescent medium. This acts similarly to acrylic in the way that you can dilute it slightly with water, and paint it on surfaces. This is semi transparent, so it will show the colour of paint or paper from beneath, but it will be slightly more pale and shimmery. I’ve made my own shimmer paper this way, as well as using watercolours with it. Mixing the medium with acrylic directly will give you an opaque shimmery look with just one coat of colour. You get quite a bit to use in one tube, as a little goes a long way.
This purchase was definitely worth it in my case, and it wasn’t too expensive.